The present invention is directed to a system and method for enhancing the quality including taste and flavor of beverages, such as fruit juices. The present invention is additionally directed to a fruit juice beverage having extended quality shelf-life without the development of off-taste and/or off-flavor characteristics.
The production of beverages has grown increasingly complex. Today""s consumers drink a widening array of beverages with different flavors and formulations. Many of these consumers are consuming fruit juices for taste and nutritional reasons.
Commercially produced fruit juice beverages are typically made with either concentrate or single strength juice. Beverages manufactured from juice concentrates are made by concentrating fruit juice, reconstituting the juice, and adding flavorings and/or other additives to form a finished fruit juice, which may then be packaged and stored. The juice may also be treated as needed to remove undesirable components such as bitterness components to make the finished juice beverage more palatable.
Certain taste and quality associated problems with current juice beverage systems are related to the manner in which the juices are packaged and stored. Many juices, especially citrus juices, need to be stored at refrigerated or reduced temperatures to prevent spoilage. Some of these juices will develop an off-taste or off-flavor if they are stored at room temperature or above for extended periods of time, so storage at refrigerated or reduced temperatures helps to maintain taste, flavor, and other qualities. These refrigerated products require more complex shipping, handling and retailing procedures. Also, consumers must store such juices in a refrigerated environment, even if they do not plan on using the juice immediately. Finally, refrigerated space is limited or non-existent in certain retail or consumption environments.
Spoilage problems have been addressed, in part, by the development of shelf-stable juices that retain acceptable microbiological levels for a certain period of time. As used herein, xe2x80x9cbiologically shelf-stablexe2x80x9d refers to a juice that does not spoil due to microbial contamination when stored in non-refrigerated conditions for an extended period of time. However, these shelf-stable juices may suffer from off-taste and/or off-flavor in a short time period, for example as little as one month or less under room-temperature storage.
In addition to off-taste and off-flavor which may be developed, certain fruit juices contain off-flavor components prior to storage. Certain processes have been developed for improving the taste of these fruit juices. One such process is directed to the removal of bitterness components from grapefruit juice, such as naringin, to improve the overall taste of the juice. Bitterness is reduced by passing the juice through a resin column containing a resin that selectively remove the desired bitterness component. However, these treated juices still require refrigeration to prevent the development of off-tastes and/or off-flavor over time if stored at room temperature. Additionally, this process is only effective for juices that contain certain bitterness components. For example, grapefruit juice and navel orange juice that have large amounts of naringin and limonin, respectively, have been known to benefit from these processes designed to remove bitterness components. However, these debittered grapefruit juice or debittered navel orange juice are normally used as an ingredient that blends with other regular juice to make juice beverage.
Certain juices have been found to have quality problems associated with taste, color and other characteristics that exist for reasons other than the presence of such bitterness compounds. One such issue is the development of undesirable off-taste and off-flavor that occur in certain juices over time under non-refrigerated storage conditions.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for enhancing and maintaining the flavor of certain fruit juices. Also, there is a need for a method and system for producing a shelf-stable fruit juice beverage with desired quality aspects. Finally, there is a need for a fruit juice beverage having extended quality shelf-life without the development of undesirable taste or flavor characteristics.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for enhancing the quality, including the flavor and taste, of a beverage.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for removing off-flavors or precursors of off-flavors from fruit juices to produce a fruit juice beverage that maintains its flavor and taste quality for an extended period of time. Such extension of the life of quality-related characteristics such as flavor, taste, color, odor, mouthfeel and other sensory characteristics shall be referred to as xe2x80x9cquality shelf lifexe2x80x9d herein.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for treating a fruit juice to improve and extend the quality shelf life by treatment with an adsorbent resin designed to remove off-flavors or precursors of the off-flavors that cause off-taste.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for producing a fruit juice beverage having an extended quality shelf life.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide fruit juices with enhanced quality and taste without nutritional loss.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, drawings, and claims.
The present invention fulfills the above-described objects by providing a system and method for enhancing the quality, including flavor and taste, of beverages. In particular, the present invention is directed to a system and method for enhancing the quality, including the flavor and taste, of fruit juices, and especially citrus juices. Additionally, the present invention is directed to a system and method for increasing the quality shelf-life of beverages. Finally, the present invention is directed to a fruit juice beverage having extended quality shelf-life without the development of off-taste or other non-quality characteristics.
The present invention includes a system and method which utilizes an adsorption resin to remove the off-flavors or precursors of off-flavors from the fruit juice. By removing these off-flavors or precursors, the present invention produces a finished fruit juice beverage with quality characteristics, such as flavor or taste, that may be maintained for an extended time period. The precursors of off-flavors are typically those which, if not removed, will degrade itself or react with other compounds in the juice over a period of time to produce a juice which has an off-taste and/or off-flavor.
In certain fruit juices, quality impacting off-flavors may be the result of off-flavor compounds in the juice or may be formed from precursors to these off-flavors, such as, for example, precursor compounds. Precursor compounds are present in small amounts in fresh juice. Therefore, these precursors do not adversely affect the taste of the fresh juice. However, over a period of time (about one month in the case of orange juice), the precursors will react with other components in the juices or degrade to produce an undesirable off-taste and/or off-flavor in the juice if the juice is left in a non-refrigerated environment. The present invention, however, provides a fruit juice beverage with substantially reduced amounts of these off-flavors and/or precursors such that the juice will not only taste better after treatment, but will also maintain its taste quality over an extended period of time, even if stored at room temperature.
The present invention is able to remove these off-flavor compounds and/or precursors by treating the juice with an adsorbent resin. This resin is selected to remove the precursors of off-flavors, such as phenolic compounds, to produce a finished juice product that has and maintains improved taste. The resin treatment step may be used at any point in the beverage production system since the precursors are present in the fresh juice product, and their removal does not adversely affect the remainder of the process by which the finished juice product is generated.
Therefore, by removing quality impacting off-flavor precursors in certain juices, the present invention is also able to produce a finished juice product with an extended quality shelf-life. If such a product is produced as a shelf stable product that is able to be stored at room temperature at acceptable levels of biological contamination, then the juice will also not spoil and is considered to be biologically shelf-stable. A shelf stable product with an extended quality shelf life means a juice that may be stored at room temperature, i.e. from about 65xc2x0 F. to about 100xc2x0 F., for a period in excess of one month, with a minimal increase in off-flavor and/or off-taste, a corresponding minimal decrease in desirable quality attributes of taste and flavor, and without microbial spoilage. However, the present invention may also be used on non-shelf stable juices, i.e. those that must be frozen or refrigerated to prevent microbial spoilage.
An added benefit of removing these off-flavor precursors is that the system and method may be used to produce a fruit juice beverage having extended quality shelf-life. Not only will freshly treated juice maintain its taste for longer time periods, but by removing a substantial amount of off-flavor and/or its precursors during production of the finished juice product, the juice will be capable of being stored at room temperatures for periods of time in excess of one month, without developing off-taste and/or off-flavor characteristics that have negatively impacted non-quality shelf-life juices of the prior art.